Bill George

Successful leaders lead with the heart, not just the head. They possess qualities like empathy, compassion and courage. They also have the ability to establish deep, long-term and genuine relationships where others trust them.

A lot of economists feel you do incentives and nothing else. I disagree. You have to motivate people around a central mission, a set of values, and then the incentives become the frosting on the cake; they become the payoff.

The bottom line is it is really important to be involved with your salespeople. CEO Anne Mulcahy has said she will go anywhere anytime to save a Xerox customer. That's the kind of engagement you have to have to be successful.

Is leadership inherent or trainable? Both. You are born with characteristics that reside deep inside you: drive, an ability to influence and motivate, perseverance. But you have to develop those qualities through actual leadership experiences. A key quality is adaptability--facing unexpected obstacles, falling short of goals, reading the context, and changing your approach. Absent that, leaders will continue to repeat mistakes and will not grow and develop. That leads me to the essence of the question "Why is it so hard to lead yourself?" The answer, in my experience, lies in the differences between your idealized self--how you see yourself and how you want to be seen--and your real self. The key to growing as a leader is to narrow that gap by developing a deep self-awareness that comes from straight feedback and honest exploration of yourself, followed by a concerted effort to make changes.

Bill George

Source: quoted in Fast Company, April 2007 - Bill George is the former CEO of Medtronics, Inc.